When most people think of Virtual Assistants (VA), they view them as a means to save time or to do mundane tasks. While that’s a possibility, one of the most powerful ways of utilizing a VA is to train them to make money for you. Yeah, that’s pretty abstract but it’s possible to find tasks that you can give to someone else that will really make a difference in your business.
Rather than give a quick blog post about how to do this, you’ll have 31 days to learn how to go from no experience with a virtual assistant – to a delegating genius. Not only that, maybe you’ll get some ideas for a new business venture that doesn’t require another 40 hours a week to manage.
What is a virtual assistant?
Although VAs are becoming very popular , it probably wouldn’t be wise to assume that everyone knows about them, or what they do. Basically, VAs are people – in your same country or not – that make their living by being hired online to perform a task. Their recent popularity is primarily attributable to the best-selling book, The Four Hour Workweek (very good read, but I don’t agree with everything in it). While hiring VAs used to be mainly for administrative and mundane tasks, there are thousands of talented folks out there that can do everything from Internet Marketing, to Architectural Engineering. The possibilities are pretty much endless if you need specialized help but don’t want to hire on a W-2 employee.
Why a VA and Not an Employee?
There are pros and cons to hiring a VA, but the majority of time the reason to hire a VA is because of cost. Even when hiring someone domestically, you are typically going to save on expenses that are normally attributable to employees. That, and the fact there you are usually not bound by long-term contracts to keep someone hired can be a life saver if the person you are working with is not the right fit for your business.
Can’t I just do everything myself?
As much as you may think that you have the talent and time to do anything and everything, more than likely you really don’t. There are some amazingly talented CEOs in the world, do they spend their time implementing code or giving small-time sales presentations? It’s time to think like a CEO. The more strategically you view the world and business, the better off you and your family will be. You’ll have time to relax with the kids or the husband/wife. You’ll also move your business forward more quickly than ever before (later you’ll see how my business increased income tremendously, but my time spent on it decreased even more).
Some initial ideas on how to utilize a virtual assistant
How you use a VA (or if you even need one at all) is dependent of what you plan on doing with them. While we won’t be going into specifics in this post (that will come later), here are some resources to check out that will show you just how amazing the talent is out there:
While 2 references may not seem like a lot, the ideas that they give are pretty overwhelming so I don’t want to paralyze you with the possibilities.
Action steps
On this first day, just list out the possible things that you could use a virtual assistant for. Preferably, you want to find those things that add value to your business. For example, following up with customers, lead generation, and product creation, are all things that could potentially bring more income to your business. Take that list and put a star next to the items that you are NOT good at, or takes a lot of your time. We’ll come back to those starred items later in this series.
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Tags: getting started with virtual assistant, how to outsource, outsource, outsourcing, virtual assistants, working less
Leave A Reply (3 comments so far)
Martha Emde
942 days ago
Dean thank you so much for the education you are providing to me as well as to the businesses and to the public at large. You are friendly, professional, thorough and extremely knowledgeable.Thank you also for given us the many ways to help our businesses grow and prosper. You are providing a great service in the education you are providing. I love your business presentation starting with the title, the wealth of links, videos sources to read and it's so clean (not cluttered) visually very attractive. I especially love meeting you in person, through your very handsome picture. I am so proud of your work and the service that you are providing for those who may be struggling in not knowing how to technologically update their businesses.
dean fitzpatrick
921 days ago
Great post Dean! I do have one question, which you'll probably answer in a later post. What didn't you agree with in the 4 Hour Work Week? I recently read it and it completely changed my view of how to best run a business, but I'm curious to find out what someone with your experience in the field would have to say that doesn't coincide with what T. Ferris wrote in the book.
Dean Soto
920 days ago
Dean (Great Name),
I am going to answer this question more deeply in a podcast/post, it's great.
When I read the 4HWW I was floored. It definitely changed my few of business and work completely. However, there were 2 things that ended up hurting me rather than helping.
The first was following his advice and just hiring a VA to learn. Well, I did that and wasted a ton of money on a VA named Tazeen that made 1 appointment for me and 1 spreadheet in an entire month because I had nothing else to give her. Needless to say, my wife wasn't pleased.
The second was that I don't believe his book is for a beginner entrepreneur. He talks about licensing, finding a muse, etc, but the majority of it isn't practical. I ended up getting frustrated and frustrating my family for months trying to apply some of his principles. (reading Gary Vaynerchuk's awesome book, Crush It!, didn't help with that either).
I'm going to answer this more fully on the blog. Thanks for the comment and for your awesome site! You are doing great things!